The Trademark Act 1999 was introduced to enable trademark protection keeping in mind the modern day ways of doing business. Under the Trademarks act, applications are divided into a total of 45 Classes. This number was 42 previously and has been updated to 45 as per the NICE classification system acceptable globally. Trademark classification means a Class of goods or services in which a certain brand name deals in. Out of the 45 classes, classes 1 to 34 are called the product classes which describe various ranges of products in each class. Class 35 is called as a universal business activity class which covers all activities related to providing the services of doing business and allied activities like advertisement etc. and classes 36 to 45 are called as service classes which describe various types of services. This system was enabled to make intellectual property protection fair and viable. In order to gain protection in activities falling across various classes, different applications need to be made in all the classes applicable. This system was implemented to make sure that a certain brand name is not protected in the field in which it is not existing and undue advantage is not gained due to the same.

Trademark classification enables the trademark application to be in the class of goods or services in which it is existing. It enables any other proprietor to use the same brand name but in another class or field of goods or services not related to the goods or services in which a particular brand name is already registered. The classification of goods or services is according to the NICE classification which was established by the NICE agreement first signed in 1957. After that there have been 10 editions, the recent one implemented on 1^st January 2016. The nice agreement has made a uniform implementation of classifications through countries and is accepted globally. This enables a particular proprietor registered in a particular class in a country to gain similar protection in the same class but in another country thus reducing confusion and making international implementation of Intellectual Property laws possible.

The below link gives a brief detail about the goods or services included in various classes as per the Indian IPINDIA website.

IPINDIA website: http://ipindiaonline.gov.in/tmrpublicsearch/classfication_goods_service.htm

Further, to find goods or services not mentioned in the Indian website link it is always advisable to refer the NICE classification link given below and conduct a search using the terms of the goods or services. As India strictly follows the NICE classification any other link used for class verification will end up in the application getting rejected.

The NICE classification search link: http://web2.wipo.int/classifications/nice/nicepub/en/fr/edition-20160101/search/

If you still don’t find the solution to your problem, feel free to contact us or visit us at Trademark Search to let our executives guide you with the same.